The Trump administration is trying to bring back transparency to the health field.
On Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order calling on departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to make healthcare prices transparent. The departments will make sure hospitals and insurers disclose actual prices and not estimates, make prices comparable across all hospitals and insurers and "rapidly implement and enforce" the Trump healthcare price transparency regulations.
Trump signed an executive order on medical price transparency during his first term back in 2019 that mandated hospitals and insurers make prices public. A lawsuit was then filed against the Biden administration in 2023, alleging it did not enforce the prescription drug transparency requirements.
Bill Hennesseey, MD, is the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of CareGuide. He said the difference this time around is will be enforcement.
"This means he's making it a priority that we all know the price of our care before we buy it like we do with everything else in our economy," said Dr. Hennessey. "He just needs to enforce the laws on the book for price transparency."
The United States Department of Health and Human Services ruled in November 2019 that a "charge" is the cash price from every hospital for every care item and that it must be publicly published. Dr. Hennessey cited the Affordable Care Act Section 2718.
Basically, there is a federal law and a federal ruling that price transparency should exist. What's missing is the enforcement.
"The enforcement needs to be very significant fines to the hospitals that are not complying with the law," Dr. Hennessey said.
According to Dr. Hennessey, there are currently about 5,700 hospitals that are not complying with the law. They are only publishing the prices of cheaper care items and nothing more than $5,000, or their "money makers."
Dr. Hennessey, Price Transparency Czar, suggests that if hospitals don't post the price of the care item or service to the person receiving it then that person gets it for free.
"If the price isn't there than it's zero dollars," he said. "If I go to a steakhouse to eat steak, what are the chances that they're not going to publish their price for steak?"
That's where President Trump's new executive order comes in. Dr. Hennessey expects strict enforcement from President Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who will simply be enforcing what's on the books as law.
"They have the legal authority to enforce fines and the law about price transparency," Dr. Hennessey added.
A few of Dr. Hennessey's suggestions include making all hospitals provide an itemized bill to every patient without a patient having to request one. The itemized bill must also include the billing code and full name (no abbreviation) of very care item. Similarly, all insurance companies must also provide an explanation of benefits with codes and names.
One form of transparent care that Dr. Hennessey says is good solution for people who need care is concierge medicine. Also known as retainer medicine or direct primary care, concierge medicine allows people to pay a fixed monthly fee to see and talk to their doctor whenever they want. It could also include EKG's, immunizations and low cost antibiotics.
"It's a transparent and fair price for care with better access to a physician who cares about you but the problem is it's not scalable the way that you and I want it to be," Dr. Hennessey said.
There are 900,000 physicians in the country and about two out of three of them are employed by a hospital. Dr. Hennessey calls that "unethical" and borderline illegal.